Naxi Hieroglyphic Phonetic Dictionary

Author: Li Lincan (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-08-01
Features: The author Li Lincan traveled to the Yunnan region with the initial motivation entirely artistic. After graduating from the National Art College, he supported his travels by selling books and eventually made his way to Lijiang. In this place, he saw the Naxi (originally called Moshe, same below) script, which resembled paintings, and he unconsciously developed a strong interest. This was entirely before he went to the Central Museum Preparation Office. The museum heard about his achievements in Lijiang and entrusted him with the task of collecting folk materials from the Lijiang area, specifically directing him to pay attention to Naxi classics. He traveled around the Lijiang area for nearly four years, collecting a total of 1,231 Naxi classics, among which only three were written in phonetic characters, while the rest were pictographic. During this period, he learned to speak Naxi and read Naxi script, and compiled an pictographic dictionary. When he first sent the manuscript of the compiled dictionary to Lichuang, we delivered it to the Institute of History and Language of the Academia Sinica for review by Mr. Li Fanggui. After reviewing it, Mr. Li said that the compilation was quite good, but the phonetic symbols used should follow the International Phonetic Alphabet; whether the values of the original symbols were accurate could not be determined. In the autumn of 1943 (1943), Mr. Li returned to Lichuang from Lijiang. Mr. He Cai, who accompanied him, was originally a "true" Naxi scholar and had intended to study Dongba. In the Lijiang area, he had already helped Mr. Li for several years. Therefore, with the approval of the Institute of History and Language, we invited Mr. Zhang Kun and Mr. He Cai to review the phonetics of each character in the dictionary. Mr. He Cai pronounced the words, while Mr. Zhang Kun listened and marked the phonetic symbols. Mr. Zhang is a highly promising young linguist trained by Mr. Fanggui and is currently an assistant researcher at the Institute of History and Language. Thus, in terms of pronunciation and phonetic notation, this dictionary can be said to have no significant issues and is already worth publishing for reference by ethnologists and linguists.